San Ysidro School District employees to undergo training on attendance reporting

The San Ysidro School District will pay as much as $9,750 for training and manuals on student attendance reporting in an effort to not repeat a past error.

The mistake occurred when the district over reported attendance for the 2015-16 school year by 262 students. As a result of the miscalculation, the state, which doles out funds to schools based on attendance, overpaid the San Ysidro district about $5.2 million.

In February, the school board agreed to repay the state.

Now the board has approved a contract with a firm that will help the district ensure employees, from teachers to administrators, property record and report attendance.

“This is a step forward,” said Chief Business Official Marilyn Adrianzen, who was hired in July. “It’s a big step forward.”

In the coming months, the firm, Wenger & Associates, will review the adequacy of the online system that the district uses to log attendance and generate data to report to the state. A key task will be to ensure the codes the district uses — such as the code for an unexcused absence — are in line with the state’s guidelines on attendance reporting.

Wenger & Associates will also develop customized manuals for teachers, school attendance clerks and other district employees.

Training, which will take place once the materials are finalized, will include two workshops and web conferences.

The manuals will be used by Wenger & Associates to help the district become certified by the state in attendance reporting.

The contract with the firm, approved unanimously by trustees on Oct. 11, runs through June. Under the agreement, the costs for the firm’s services will not exceed $9,750.

“We needed to bring in Wenger & Associates so that everyone is on the same page and trained in all of the areas of (student attendance) accounting,” Adrianzen said.

She noted the district of about 5,000 students, which has faced leadership and financial troubles in recent years, is working to improve in many areas with a new superintendent, Gina Potter, at the helm. Potter was hired in May.

“We’re trying to put the district back together,” Adrianzen said.

The district’s error in 2016 occurred under the leadership of former Superintendent Julio Fonseca, who resigned in September. An audit completed in June found he and former Assistant Superintendent Arturo-Sanchez-Macias were each overpaid more than $160,000, mostly in insurance and vacation payouts, during their two-year tenure with the district.

The incorrect student attendance figure for the 2015-16 school year was used to calculate the district’s funding for two consecutive years. The state uses the larger number between the current and previous year, and the attendance inaccurately reported for 2015-16 year was greater than the attendance for the 2016-17 year.

When the error was discovered as part of a routine audit in 2016, the district decided to put the funds aside and dispute the findings. In November, interim Chief Business Official Peter Wong determined the audit was accurate and recommended the board approve an agreement to repay the state.